


Decision 2040

by a_big_apple



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: 2020 US Presidential Election, COVID-19, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending, Multi, Other, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27447604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: Imagine that the world of Steven Universe is better than ours (it is) and that it took them 20 years to get to where we are now: a virus, an election, and Pearl freaking out.
Relationships: Bismuth/Pearl (Steven Universe), Bismuth/Pearl/Pink Diamond's Original Pearl | Volleyball, Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, Pearl & Steven Universe, Pearl (Steven Universe) & Everyone, Pearl/Pink Diamond’s Original Pearl | Volleyball
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35





	Decision 2040

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in a state of dread and exhaustion, because I couldn't keep cycling between CNN and West Wing reruns without excising some of that. I finished it tonight in a state of relief. There's work to be done--this story has a brighter ending than the real world--but I have some hope, and here's that feeling in words.

After the polls close on the East coast, they gather around the television in the living room to watch results roll in. It’s not festive; the prevailing feeling of the room, Pearl thinks, is urgency. There’s so much riding on this. There’s always so much riding on this—but Pearl has never paid so much _attention_ before.

Steven’s there too, on a Whoosh call. He’s called every day, but he hasn’t been home to visit in almost a year. There are too many uncertainties. Gems can’t get the virus, but they can carry it on the surface of their forms; Pearl disinfects the house, and all its residents and regular guests, daily. Greg isn’t getting any younger, and Steven’s body can be unpredictable; none of them are willing to take a chance.

But they can’t close themselves off, either. There’s still the school, smaller now than when they opened it twenty years ago, but still serving its purpose. They sent the human teachers home when Delmarva first shut down, but classes for the Gems continued—and once it was proven Gems couldn’t carry the virus hidden on their breath, their help became more crucial in Beach City and further afield. Volley took over most of Pearl’s classes months ago, and Pearl’s been working twelve- and fourteen- and sixteen-hour shifts at the hospital with Priyanka ever since. If she’s honest with herself, it feels terrifyingly similar to being at war. She hasn’t told anyone that—she’ll keep the harshest realities from touching her family, if she can, for as long as possible.

So they’re all here, everyone she’ll allow in the house. Garnet and Amethyst of course, and Greg. Bismuth and Volley, Lapis and Peridot. Cat Steven the second, and Pumpkin the fourth. Gem naming conventions have never been the _most_ original. There’s pizza, and Volley curled into Pearl’s side, and Amethyst sprawled with her head in Garnet’s lap for petting and her feet digging into Pearl’s thigh to needle her. She just squeezes Amethyst’s knee once in a while instead, tips quiet kisses into Volley’s hair, lets Bismuth’s low rumble of commentary blanket her and keeps her eyes fixed on the news.

She knows they won’t have a clear result tonight. Steven’s told them so, over and over. Still, as states on DNN’s interactive map turn red and blue and the numbers start to roll up and up, it’s hard to look away. They hear the same chatter on loop, the in-person votes accumulating, the counting beginning on the votes through the mail. They’ll count all night, they say. Voting methods are breaking along party lines, they say. Things might look grim for liberals at the start, but the commentators predict the tide will turn as the mail-ins get processed. 

Peridot and Lapis give in first. The excitement wanes when it’s clear there won’t be any major strides toward a win tonight, and they teach early classes. Bismuth offers to walk home with them, kisses Volley and then Pearl goodnight. Steven starts to yawn on the Whoosh call, and the laptop battery is dying so they let him go. Volley just settles in closer. She’s been spending the night a lot now that Pearl’s working at the hospital, getting skin to skin time when she can; by the time Greg lumbers upstairs to bed, she’s asleep with her head in Pearl’s lap. Garnet retreats to the temple, some stress in the angle of her back. Amethyst stays a while, munching popcorn, but when there’s talk of the incumbent giving a speech in the wee hours she sighs and gets to her feet.

“Can’t _stand_ that guy. Don’t watch this all night, huh? Watching’s not gonna change what happens.”

“I know,” Pearl says. She does know, but it doesn’t help. 

Amethyst ruffles Pearl’s hair, just to be a pest, and grabs an unpopped bag of popcorn kernels from the kitchen before disappearing into her room.

Pearl delicately unwinds Volley’s hair, runs her fingers through soft pink curls as she watches, until dawn starts creeping up from behind the ocean.

***

She almost wishes she was working. She’s been given the week off, for better or worse, to keep tabs on politics. Priyanka too. They’ve bonded a little, Pearl thinks. Over children, theirs and not-theirs, over keeping their hands busy, over doing _something_ to help even when the best course isn’t clear. Over needing control, and not having it.

She cleans the house, instead. Volley helps her, and maybe the optics of the two pearls in the house scrubbing every surface isn’t very revolutionary but Pearl needs to keep moving or she’ll vibrate apart, and Volley wants to support her coping mechanisms. Garnet makes breakfast; Greg and Amethyst chat about nothing as they eat. In the living room, on mute, DNN is still playing. 

As the start of classes nears, Amethyst does the dishes, Garnet feeds Cat Steven the second, and Volley kisses Pearl very gently a dozen times.

“You’re worrying,” she says as she nuzzles their noses together.

“I can’t help it.”

“I know.” Volley kisses her again. A baker’s dozen. “I adore you. I’ll come back after class. Maybe you should go out and spar today or something, get out of the house a little? Take a walk at least?”

Pearl breathes out, slow, slow. Closes her eyes, and leans her weight a little into Volley’s warm body. “I’ll find you a pretty shell.”

“I’d love that,” she says, with utter sincerity. She has a collection. She’s so _sweet_ , she’s been so _gentle_ with Pearl lately and Pearl only barely deserves it. This time Pearl gives _her_ a kiss, over her eye but she tips her head to smear it onto her mouth with a grin.

When she peels herself out of Pearl’s arms, it’s like she takes the surface of Pearl’s skin with her. From the look that strobes across her face, she feels the same. Sometimes Pearl _hates_ being—

“Take Greg with you,” Garnet says as she passes, squeezing Pearl’s shoulder. “He could use the exercise.”

“I’m not a dog, you know,” he calls from the kitchen table, where he’s swirling the dregs of his coffee in the bottom of a _World’s Coolest Dad_ mug. It’s Garnet’s mug—Greg’s says _World’s Raddest Dad_ , but if Garnet doesn’t mind then Pearl’s not going to be pedantic about it. Then he looks at Pearl with a sleepy early morning smile. “Wouldn’t mind a walk, though.”

The house is quiet while Greg gets dressed—”Wear a sweater, it’s chilly for you!” “I haven’t forgotten how to dress myself Pearl!”—so she turns the sound back on to catch a bit of the news chatter. 

_“—would be a historic win, as we know. Senator Zircon was the first Gem to hold public office in the state of Delmarva and on Earth, and if elected would be the first Gem in the Green House—”_

“Ready?” Greg says, appearing beside her. Pearl takes a calming breath, and mutes the television again.

“Let’s go.”

They walk along the beach, because Pearl promised Volley a shell, away from town and around the other side of the peninsula. They don’t talk much; they don’t have to. It’s been so many years. Greg hums, composes little tunes behind closed lips, and Pearl offers harmonies and little countermelodies when the music moves her. When she spots something colorful in the sand, she bends to scoop it up, making a little collection in her palm that she’ll choose a perfect love token from.

“I think it’s gonna work out okay,” Greg says at last, on their way back to the house. “I know that doesn’t make waiting easier, but I have a good feeling.”

Greg knows more about human politics than Pearl does, so she trusts his assessment. Privately, she’s afraid to have a good feeling. To think about what will happen, at all. This part isn’t like war, there’s no morale component. Believing in the outcome she wants won’t change the numbers that are agonizingly slow to tabulate. But she does want it, so desperately. She wants humans and Gems to coexist without fear. She wants her family to be safe, and to live as they choose, no matter what anyone thinks of their choices. She cares, in spite of herself, about the larger world outside her door and the most oppressed who suffer in it. Some of Rose rubbed off on her, in the end.

“Here’s hoping,” she offers; Greg chuckles rather knowingly and claps her on the back. 

“Just try not to give in to panic, okay? The only way out is through.”

It’s the kind of advice she’s heard murmured to laboring mothers when she’s sanitizing equipment in the maternity ward. This isn’t as painful as all that seems to be—or as painful as battle, for that matter—but she feels renewed empathy for the partners, the exhausting helplessness of _waiting_ visible on their faces even with their masks on. Children coming into the world; children making their own way, dreaming their own dreams, even from their first breath and cry.

***

Somehow, the day passes. Greg makes himself lunch and they watch more returns come in, more commentary, more speculation, but afterward he makes her mute it again. They jam for a while instead, him on a guitar, Pearl on Steven’s ukulele, giving the idle tunes they’d walked to a shape, a direction. She’s obscenely grateful for the distraction. By sundown, Amethyst has come home, been thoroughly washed on the porch, and has tracked wet footprints through the house along with the tacos she’s brought for dinner. Bismuth arrives next, grinning through the window as Pearl hurries out. 

Bis spreads her arms, closes her eyes. “My favorite time of day,” she says, used to the routine; a little laugh twists up out of Pearl’s throat as she gets the bucket and hose. She takes care with Bis’ gem. She always does, but she’s feeling tender, and the look Bis gives her when she soaps all the corners of its interior with her fingertips chases some of the shadows from her mind. She gets a soapy kiss for her trouble, and then a wet hug when Bis has been hosed off. “Maybe I should just stay over tonight,” Bis rumbles with Pearl tucked to her chest. “Hmm?”

“Greg and Amethyst can see us, you know,” Pearl says as Bismuth’s hand drifts...low. “You put these huge windows in yourself.”

“They’re glued to the tv,” Bis argues, and kisses her gem in a sweet, electric brush of affection. It’s good. Bis is warm. She’s...she blocks out the dark, replaces it with the twilight of her skin. But Pearl’s mind is already threading through the crack under the door, pulled toward the unintelligible murmur of the news. A little pat on her backside says _I get it_ and _whenever you’re up for it_ , and together they go inside.

DNN is the same, the same, the same. An agonizing creep of numbers. On-the-fly math, repetitive commentary. A few more states, including Delmarva, turn from gray to blue on their maps as they zoom in and out of counties that look like poorly cut puzzle pieces. The candidates speak, and it doesn’t reassure her. It should be a concession and a victory speech—not a nest of lies and an appeal for calm. By four in the morning it’s just Pearl, Volley, and Bismuth still watching. They sit on either side of her, boxing her in as the math turns from ballot batch updates to numbers of humans infected, numbers of humans dying, every day, crying out for decisive action.

“Come to bed for a while,” Bismuth murmurs at last. She can certainly hear the direction Pearl’s breathing is trending.

“I can’t sleep.”

“I know.” Bis’ shovel-sized hand on her thigh is a suggestion, an offer, with no judgement attached. On her other side, Volley nuzzles the side of her neck; lightly knocks their feet together. The white and purpley-gray oyster shell Pearl brought her is tucked into one of her buns like a feather.

Pearl watches the commentary turn again, starting the same endless loop afresh. Decisively she mutes the television, and draws her lovers away to her room.

***

Another day; the margins are narrowing. Just a few states stay stubborn gray on all the maps, and the news calls them _battlegrounds_. One of them is a neighbor, Keystone. Pearl thinks of Greg’s parents, the little bit he’s told her about them. They’re both gone now, but they used to live there. They left their house to Andy; when Greg went to help him clean it out, Pearl went too. Andy offered it to Greg, to Steven, but neither of them wanted it. She thinks she can guess how they might have voted, if they were still there.

She starts to become attached, almost fond, of her favorites of the DNN commentators. Their exhaustion and honesty speak to her, almost a comfort. One of them is a Gem, a Citrine she’s never met, who always has scathing words for the incumbent; she’s often at the desk beside a young Black man whose commentary has, more than once in the last 72 hours, made Pearl cry. She opens her room for Bis and Volley, who both gently express a need to get away from the endless cycle; she watches all night on her own, arms wrapped around her knees. 

Another day; the margins are widening again, in the other direction. The direction she wants. The waiting is still endless, grinding, but she allows herself a sliver of hope. Un-hunches her shoulders just a fraction. Steps away from the television long enough to go to the Sky Arena and blow off steam, and when she’s fought her way through a phalanx of holo-Gems she finds Garnet in the stands watching her.

“Thought you might want a partner,” she says, and her gauntlets flash up around her hands. She’s not as unreadable as people always think—as Pearl used to think. There’s tension in every line of her, and honestly? It would be a relief to do something for someone _else’s_ anxiety. She tucks the sword she’d been using back into her gem, pulls out a spear. Smiles.

“Mmhmm, and you waited until I’ve already been at it for three hours because..?”

“Thought you might want a _challenge_ ,” Garnet clarifies, and dashes for her.

They’re both strong; Garnet’s stronger. They’re both fast; Pearl is faster. They’ve been doing this for thousands of years, and they have a rhythm. Pearl blocks Garnet’s fist with her spear, a hit so hard her arms vibrate, and falls into that quiet place in her mind where nothing exists, nothing’s _important_ , except her body, her weapon, and her opponent. 

There’s no time to worry, here. Garnet gives her no ground, and no opportunities. They’re not trying to actually damage each other, of course, but even if they were they’d be evenly matched, power against strategy, clairvoyance against creativity, experience against experience.

A good spar between them could go for hours, has gone for hours before, but Pearl _is_ tired. She’s been on edge for days, for weeks, for years. So she zeroes in on the way Garnet’s fists meet her spear, or the ground, or graze her body. Pays attention to the set of her mouth, and her shoulders. When some of the tightness there converts to fluid motion, Pearl starts to let up just a fraction. Leave tiny opportunities. It doesn’t take long for Garnet to huff a laugh and take what’s presented, slamming Pearl onto her back with not inconsiderable but less-than-shattering force. “You could just say you’ve had enough.”

Pearl chuckles around a groan, letting her spear drop from her hand and her limbs go noodly against the cool stone of the arena floor. “I thought we both might appreciate a decisive ending to _something_.”

“Pearl.”

“Are you feeling better?” 

Garnet tugs her to her feet. “Mmm.”

“So am I.” Pearl dusts herself off as best she can, then loops her arms around Garnet’s. “Really. Not, you know, great. But that helped. Like I’m not about to rocket into space.”

Garnet shifts her weight, bumping their hips together. “We’ll keep your feet on the ground.”

The atmosphere is a little lighter, when they get home. Steven is on the phone again; the news is on, sound down low, numbers continuing to trend in the direction they’re all hoping for.

“Hello Steven!” Pearl leans into view of the camera. “Everything all right there?”

“Yep!” he reports with a lighter smile than she’s seen in days. “Just waiting, same as everybody else.” 

“Okay. You’ve eaten today? Gotten some rest?”

“Everything’s fine,” he assures her. “I don’t want to jinx it, but I think everything’s gonna be fine.”

“Jinxes aren’t real, Steven.”

He just grins.

***

Pearl still doesn’t really like to sleep, but she’s come to appreciate the opportunity for a reset. Letting the motor of her mind rest, if only briefly. It’s best like this, when she can lay her head in Bismuth’s lap and feel safeguarded, when Volley’s cuddled up against her chest on a couch that’s only barely deep enough for them both. The house is quiet again, and the sun is long gone; on DNN they’ve heard a series of state election officials give the last totals of the night, letting their workers go home for a break and promising to resume in the morning. There won’t be anything new, not for hours; at last, Pearl turns the television off.

“You wanna take this to your room?” Bismuth murmurs, not a stress relief suggestion this time but a practical one. Pearl shakes her head minutely; Volley tucks herself even closer, creeping ivy limbs winding tight.

“We might know something tomorrow.”

“We might,” Bis agrees with a smile in her tone. Her hand strokes Pearls hair back away from her face, brushes light and warm over her gem. “Close your eyes, huh?”

“Mm.”

Volley’s nearly asleep; she daubs a kiss that’s more like a lazy raspberry against Pearl’s collarbone. Pearl burrows her face in Volley’s hair, and closes her eyes.

If she dreams, she doesn’t remember it, or wake with a scream lodged in her throat. She doesn’t wake with the sun, either. She wakes because she’s warm, and somewhere in the periphery of her awareness she can hear far-off yelling, honking. Closer, out on the beach, music. The summer hit of two years ago, unfortunately familiar—Peridot played it constantly in the greenhouse. _Who’s having a party at this hour?_ she wonders. _I hope the humans are wearing masks._ She shifts a little, trying to free herself of whatever blanket is overheating her.

The blanket moves. “Good morning,” Volley whispers, kissing her eyelids. “Pearl. She won.”

“Mm?”

“She won. They called Keystone half an hour ago.”

Pearl wrenches an eye open, finds Volley grinning at her through the bleary fuzz of her vision. “She won?”

“It’s over.”

“Oh,” she breathes, and Volley kisses her when she starts to cry. Kisses her for a good ten minutes while the music, more of Peridot’s party playlist, filters in from outside. Cheering, from the boardwalk. The charcoal smell of the grill. There’s a pillow under their heads instead of Bismuth’s thigh; a moment after she registers the loss, she can hear that booming laugh amid the celebrations on the beach. Volley’s gem is heating up, her breath sticky warm, unseasonable sun painting their limbs; reluctantly Pearl tries to sit up and reluctantly Volley lets her, hair mussed, a pink flush in her cheeks. 

“Pearl,” she whines, soft, giddy. Pearl’s blushing too, she’s sure. 

“My phone is somewhere, I can hear it buzzing. But.” She slides their noses together. “A little later. We’ll celebrate. Somewhere that’s not the living room, right in front of the bay windows. With Bismuth.”

Volley laughs and flops back down on her back, defeated. “We have blinds. We could take pictures for Bismuth.”

“ _Volley._ ”

Her phone has blown up with messages, little nagging red notifications on every app anyone could conceivable contact her on. She spends an hour texting, watching nationwide celebration footage on DNN, taking calls. Mayor Miller, the Little Homeworld communications desk, the Beach City Bulletin and Ocean Town Intelligencer and beyond. Priyanka and Doug. _Yellow Diamond_ , which is always awkward, but her interest in Earth politics has meant they talk a little more now than the _absolutely never_ they talked before.

Steven, wearing a bedazzled “VOTE” mask, in the scrum of a party. “Six feet, Steven,” she scolds, and her son has the audacity to laugh.

“We all get tested daily,” he assures her, “and there’s nobody here from outside the bubble, I promise.”

“When is she—”

“Tonight at eight. Where is everybody?”

“Outside, come _on_ Pearl,” Volley answers, dipping her face into frame for a moment and then steering with both hands in the curve of Pearl’s back. 

“We’re taking you outside to see, I guess!” Pearl laughs, and they burst out onto the porch. 

The beach is crawling with Gems, surging back and forth along the sand between Little Homeworld and the boardwalk and the center of the party, the Crystal Gems laughing and dancing and eating as many hot dogs as Greg can fit on the grill at one time. As she descends with the phone held out, she can see a similar gathering on the boardwalk, little clumps of distanced humans waving flags and blowing noisemakers like it’s New Year’s Eve. Over the line Steven is laughing as people jostle into view; when they reach the grill Pearl trades the phone for the tongs and lets Greg have him for a bit. Volley stays draped over her back like a happy barnacle; Bis sidles up with her hand shapeshifted into a tray, ready for more food, holding Amethyst at bay with one hand.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she says, with every bit of her usual sparkle. Pearl lifts her chin and Bis obliges her with a searing kiss. “It’s a beautiful day, you’re a beautiful Gem, these are beautiful dogs.”

“Come on, just two! I’d even settle for one!” Amethyst is whining, and Pearl taps her hand when she shapeshifts her arm to get around the blockade.

“Save some for everybody else.”

“Loosen up, will you?” she shoots back with a laugh, swiping three hot dogs and dancing away.

With a sigh Pearl turns her attention to Bismuth, still beaming down at her. “Why didn’t you two wake me?”

“You needed it. Slept right through the news breaking, Amethyst was practically screaming in your ear.”

“That’s not unusual enough to wake me up.”

“There’s more stuff for the grill in that cooler there,” Bismuth tells her, pointing. “Looks like you’re on duty ‘til Greg comes back.”

“I’ll help!” Volley chirps; she’s already pulling things out. “Hot dogs, why do we have so many? Veggie burgers, ooh, there’s corn!”

Bismuth chuckles, and wades back into the crowd.

It’s not so bad, getting stuck at the grill for a while. Enjoying the festive mood as it pulses around her. When Greg comes back to return her phone, she trades it for a paper plate with a veggie burger on it, and he chuckles. “Thanks.”

“He looks good. Really happy.” 

“Yeah,” Greg agrees with a pleased look. “He told you, eight o’clock?”

“Do you think we could set up a screen? Show it on the beach?”

A considering nod. “Yeah, I think we could pull it off. I’ll check in with Peridot. Doesn’t she have one over there for movie nights?”

“Ask Bismuth to help her, she’ll get distracted and let it drop if she tries to bring it over herself.”

“Take the day off of worrying, would ya?” 

Eventually the sun goes down. The parties, on the beach and on the boardwalk, ebb and flow, quiet a little without losing any of the joy. The grill’s gone cold, the screen has been erected, and Greg dutifully tests the audio, lets DNN commentary play for a bit to set the mood. There’s footage of the campaign headquarters, just a 90 minute drive up the Delmarva coast, and a joyful, noisy crowd in the streets and the parking lot and surrounding the open air stage. 

Pearl settles down in the sand with Volley in her lap, Bismuth at her back. Garnet on one side, quiet, radiant, and Greg sprawled in a chair just beyond. Amethyst and Lapis and Peridot cuddled into a pile like pearls on her other side, Pumpkin the fourth in Peridot’s lap. The sky is clear, and spattered with stars; when Pearl looks up, she can name each one.

The television switches, closes in on the stage, the empty podium. Something flutters in Pearl’s chest, as if she had a heart there. Then movement in the wings, and music, and cheers. 

Blue Zircon strides into view, waving; the beach erupts with Gems shouting as if she can hear them through the screen. It is possible, Pearl thinks, that they’re making enough noise to be heard in another part of the state.

Zircon’s speech is eloquent, and unusually calm. Practiced. Prompted—there’s text flickering across her monocle. But it’s stirring—against Pearl’s back, Bismuth sniffles. In her lap, Volley wipes her eyes. Garnet passes over the box of tissues.

“You’ve spoken,” Zircon is saying, “with your hard work, with your struggle, with your votes and your voices. I am incredibly honored to serve as your Vice President Elect. I am even more honored to introduce to you the next President of the United States.”

More cheering and music on the screen—but here, on the beach, everyone is holding their breath. 

Connie steps up to the podium and removes her mask, careful and precise. Her suit is a bright, warm burgundy; her hair is loose around her shoulders in glossy waves. “My fellow Americans,” she says into the echoing quiet. 

At last a roar erupts, on the screen, on the beach, from Bismuth’s chest solid behind her. “That’s our GIRL!” she booms, and Pearl laughs just this side of hysterical. The camera pulls back a little as Connie beams, waiting for the applause to ease, Zircon standing just three steps behind her with hands folded. In the front row, practically in the aisle, Steven is on his feet—tall, broad, the soft curls he’s grown long pulled back into a ponytail. He’s clapping frantically; Pearl pretends she can pick out the timbre of his voice amid the ruckus. Her son will be the First Spouse. Her daughter will be the Leader of the Free Planet. 

Greg leans forward a little, glances over to Pearl with a wet sort of grin. 

_You should be proud_ , she mouths.

_You too_ , he mouths back.

She looks down at her phone, as if that will hide the way her eyes prickle. She texts Priyanka. _She looks radiant. She looks ready._

_She is ready,_ comes the swift reply. _This was the first fight. Thank you for teaching her how to win a war._

_I don’t think that was just me_ , she sends back. _I can see you on the television! Tell Connie and Steven we love them, and to let us know when we should visit._

“Thank you,” Connie is saying into the microphone, trying to tamp down the cheers. “Thank you!”

Pearl takes a deliberate, settling breath. Blows it out through her nose as Volley fidgets with excitement. Looks around the beach, up at the sky, back to the screen, and settles down to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments! Or you can come find me on tumblr at a-big-apple <3


End file.
